THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 25, 2013
51
SHOUTS & MURMURS
I WORK HARD AND
I PLAY SOFT
BY TEDDY WAYNE
Shut your idiot trap for a minute and
maybe you'll learn something. I'm a
broker at the top hedge fund in New
York fucking City. I kick ass and I don't
even take names, because I could give a
shit about other people's identities. I
made more money during my lunch
hour than you'll earn in a decade. Sloth-
ful national holidays observe me.
But, come the weekend, I turn into a
goddam room-temperature-green-tea-
sipping, crafts-show-watching, hard-
core online-mah-jongg enthusiast.
When I'm in that office, boy, watch
out: I will tear your new one its own new
one. I'm not a shark; I'm a motherfuck-
ing orca. I crunch numbers like they're
granola and spit them out in your face,
because I don't eat anything except raw
red meat. Sometimes I donate money to
charity during the day, not out of altru-
ism but just to challenge myself to earn
it back twofold by sundown.
And after a hard day of work I love
nothing more than winding down with
some hatha yoga, "The Very Best of
Enya" on low volume, and a tall, ice-
cold O'Doul's in a commemorative glass
from a trip I took to a Barbie convention
with my nieces.
Hey, Poindexter, feast your correc-
tive-lens-adjusted eyes on this power
suit: pinstripes, peak lapels, Italian silk
imported from a seven-hundred-year-
old family business in Como. I sewed it
myself in eight months, in a Wednes-
day-night class at the community cen-
ter. Edith's a really patient teacher.
Yesterday, this Young Turk in the
office comes up to me, boasting about a
major deal he's got cooking. Serious egg
on his face two hours later when it falls
through. He's slumped over his desk,
feeling sorry for himself. "Sack up, ju-
nior!" I boom. "When life hands you a
lemon, you sink your fangs into that cit-
ric acid and smile, because lemonade is
for children and humanities majors."
I collect vintage night-lights that I
buy on Etsy.
Hold on, I'm closing on something
the size of an inferior country's G.D.P.,
and the S.E.C.'s been on my ass like
John Wayne on a stallion. . . . Stacy, be
a doll and clear my evening and order up
a couple pounds of steak, 'cause Daddy's
gonna be taking care of business and
working overtime. And do me a favor:
make sure you correctly set my DVR for
the rerun marathon on Oxygen of
"Grace Under Fire."
My Delta brothers and I get together
once a month---we can't do it more than
that, given how much time we spend
molding the financial world in our im-
ages, and also most of them have new-
borns in Scarsdale, so the commute's a
bitch. We'll hang in someone's feng-
shui-appointed salon, read third-wave-
feminist blogs on Sheryl Sandberg, and
discuss our insecurities stemming from
childhood bullying. This is what real
men do, and if you can't stand the heat
get out of the kitchen, 'cause Pete's
probably grilling up some of his famous
rosemary-flecked tofu, except not for
Jim, because of his soy allergy.
Don't even think about crossing me.
I can buy and sell you a thousand times
over. And I'll be laughing all the way to
my daily cognitive-behavioral-therapist
appointment, punk, where Dr. Tessler
and I work on using laughter as a means
of assuaging social anxiety.
You got a problem with what I'm
saying? Well, you know what we do
with little pissants like you where I
come from? We sit down and have our-
selves an old-fashioned conflict-
mediation session in which we start
every sentence with "I feel." I come from
Darien, Connecticut.
See that chick there, the one with the
centerfold rack? Spent a week with her
in Vegas, dominating investors at a con-
ference. We were together every waking
minute, working on PowerPoints and
pitches, and then, the last night, you
guessed it---went back to her hotel
room, where we stayed up till the break
of dawn, talking through her boyfriend
issues. If her relationship status ever
changes on Facebook, I might shoot her
an e-mail to see if she wants to maybe
grab coffee or something sometime after
work or whatever. Decaf, obviously.
When you're ready to learn how to
be a master of the universe, call me. But
if it's a Friday night, after I close down
the office, don't bother. That's my time
for scrapbooking.
GARY TAXALI